


@crowcaged

by bees-roleplaylogs (49percentchanceofbees)



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Multiverse, Roleplay Logs, Timeline Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 10,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25489420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/49percentchanceofbees/pseuds/bees-roleplaylogs
Summary: Drabble / plot point logs for my canon-divergent Uldren Sov RP blog,@crowcaged(ft. my guardian@beatrice-4).AU starts out post-Forsaken with Uldren attempting a hunger strike after several months of solitary confinement. (This came after several months of IC interaction on tumblr, but that's the context of the first drabble.)These pieces often operate as first drafts of concepts and plot points for my ficuldren sov lives, and I would recommend picking that up instead if you're looking for polished writing and a fully thought-out plot.Also note that I generally don't post my actual roleplay threads; these drabbles represent interactions between my own muses.
Relationships: Female Guardian & Uldren Sov, Uldren Sov/Jolyon Till the Rachis
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

Uldren would have liked to have been waiting by the door when it opened, ready to ambush whoever entered and make a break for freedom. Instead he was half-asleep, adrift in a vaguely miserable state of not-quite-thought, as he’d spent much of his time since the beginning of his hunger strike and, indeed, his imprisonment overall.

The sight of the person entering the cell rocketed him to awareness, however, and he jumped to his feet, then swayed on them, light-headed. “ _ You! _ ”

As the door closed and locked behind her, Beatrice-4 looked at him and shrugged.

“Why are you here?” Uldren demanded. In all the scenarios where he’d envisioned confronting his captor, he’d never wanted to do so on seven days’ fast, struggling to stand. He wondered if she’d ever face him on equal footing, when he could actually put up a fight.

Beatrice lifted the paper bag that dangled from one of her hands, and then the smell hit Uldren, hot and savory and  _ familiar _ , and he had to sit down, head swimming with hunger and homesickness at once. He looked away, as if the sight were obscene -- as if doing so would help him block out the aroma. With difficulty, he said, “Get that out of here. I don’t want it.”

“You need to eat.” The voice sounded wrong, and a glance confirmed that the words came not from the woman herself but from her ghost, which had appeared at her shoulder.

“No,” Uldren said, voice hoarse, stomach growling. His head felt too painfully fuzzy to muster any argument beyond that.

Looking around the cell as if considering buying it, Beatrice walked over to his desk and put down the bag. Then she picked up one of his journals and flipped through it, clearly uncomprehending: he’d written them in code, in the hopes of maintaining a little privacy. She turned the book sideways as if that might help her puzzle it out. Meanwhile the ghost buzzed over to Uldren, scanning him. He made one ineffectual attempt to swat it out of the air and then gave up, leaning back against the wall as he sat on the narrow bed.

“You really are in bad shape,” the ghost said.

“Your powers of observation astound.” Uldren didn’t even have the energy for petty bickering. He had to resist the urge to rest his head in his hands.

Beatrice grabbed the desk chair and spun it around so that one of the corners pointed towards Uldren, then sat in it, one knee on each side of that corner. Her elbow rested on the chair’s back, propping up her head as she examined him closely. At least, he thought she was examining him closely; he could read no emotion in her immobile exo faceplate, not even interest.

“Haven’t you done enough?” Uldren said. He’d intended to speak in anger, but it came out quieter and more pathetic. “What more do you want? Must you gloat over what’s left of me?”

“We’re not here to gloat,” the ghost said. “Let’s start with you eating something.”

Standing up, Beatrice grabbed the takeout bag from the desk and offered it to Uldren. He tried to focus on something else: her weapons, still carried even here. Could he wrestle one away? He immediately ruled out the bow on her back; in his weakened state, he couldn’t muster the strength to draw it. But she wore a golden sidearm at her waist … He lunged forward, grabbing for it, and she caught his wrist easily -- she’d seen him looking -- while he stumbled and lost his footing, falling to his knees at her feet. She didn’t even drop the food.

Uldren couldn’t help letting out a groan as he stared at her scuffed boots. The symbolism of this particular tableau … He ought to get up, but he just couldn’t make himself do so. He couldn’t even make himself look up. Instead, he muttered, “Leave me be.”

“Leaving you be is how we got to this point, so, no,” the ghost said. Beatrice still held Uldren’s wrist; she put the food down on the bed and pulled him to his feet, not altogether gently, releasing him with a push towards the bed. He sat down, heavily, trying not to look at or think about the bag of food, but the smell was getting to him, even over the odor of his own unwashed body. (He had given up on showering around day four. It occurred to him to hope that exos lacked a sense of smell; though why shouldn’t she fully experience the state to which she’d reduced him?)

To Uldren’s surprise, Beatrice sat down next to him on the bed, putting the gun on her belt squarely within his reach again. He waited until her hands were full -- she’d picked up the bag of food -- to grab it and press the barrel to her forehead.

She glanced up briefly and then went back to pulling food out of the bag.

“It’s not loaded,” the ghost said. “And even if it were -- what would be the point?”

“Satisfaction?” Uldren didn’t lower the gun. The ghost was right: shooting her wouldn’t really do anything. It certainly wouldn’t get him out of here, and it wouldn’t even kill her. He pulled the trigger anyway, just to see if the ghost was lying, but nothing happened. Had she worn it just to tantalize him?

Speaking of tantalizing, Beatrice had pulled out a carton of soup and taken off the lid. He’d thought he’d gotten used to the persistent hunger, but it roared back to life at the sight and smell of the food, so much so that it doubled him over -- he remembered not to drop the gun, though he did lower it.

“Look, if you really want to be left alone so badly, eat, and we’ll go away,” the ghost said. It tilted in the air. “Though Anaris -- and your therapist -- seemed to think that being left alone was part of the problem -- ”

“You are quite literally the last person in the solar system whose company I’d enjoy,” Uldren said. Was it true?  _ Riven _ , whispered a traitorous part of his mind, but she was dead, so she didn’t count. As for someone like Petra, at least she’d have the decency to put him out of his misery.

Beatrice shrugged at that and offered Uldren the soup and a spoon she’d dug out of the bag. For a moment he only glared at her, struggling with his resolve, and then he grabbed them both out of her hands.

He would have liked to eat at a measured pace, giving no hint of just how badly he’d wanted the food -- wanted an excuse to end his fast, too -- but his body wouldn’t let him.

“Careful, you’ll make yourself sick,” the ghost said, as he tipped the container to drink the last drops of broth. Beatrice handed him the next carton: dumplings. She’d already opened it.

After the first dumpling, Uldren came up for air long enough to say, “I’m eating. So go.”

He didn’t like her watching him eat like an animal, noting his desperation, his weak will. Shrugging, she put the remaining food down next to him and left.

It was only after the door closed behind her that he realized he’d forgotten to hold onto the gun.


	2. Chapter 2

“So, uh, could we take Uldren out of here?” Andrew asked.

The jailer on duty, a male exo, thought about this for a moment and then shrugged. “I can’t see why not. You’re the one who caught him, after all. Are you going to bring him back?”

Bea shrugged, as Andrew looked at her in increasing worry. The question had been hypothetical, right?  _ Hypothetical _ .

“Well, we’ll keep the cell ready, then.”

“Bea,” Andrew said on their private channel, as Bea walked quickly back to Uldren’s cell. “Bea, that was a hypothetical question. It’s good to know, for the future, but -- ”

“I’m eating,” Uldren said, lip twisted in a snarl, climbing to his feet from where he’d sat on the bed. Not at the moment, he wasn’t, but according to his jailers, he had started taking meals again. “What more do you want?”

Bea grabbed his upper arm and started to march him to the door. He pulled away. “Don’t touch me. What are you -- ”

Spinning him around to face her, Bea put a finger to her lips. Though Uldren stopped talking, he looked more confused than compliant.

“Bea,” Andrew said, still in private, “if you take Uldren Sov out of prison right now, what are you going to do with him? Do you have a plan? You don’t have a plan.”

Bea shrugged and stood in front of the door, still holding onto a baffled Uldren.

“I’m not opening that door, Bea.”

Bea waved impatiently at the door.

The jailer came onto Bea’s voice channel. “Uh, guardian, you want me to get that for you? Is it stuck?”

Bea nodded. Andrew had a deep feeling that he ought to stop this, but he also didn’t want to explain to the jailer why he had to act against his own guardian.

“This is such a bad idea,” he told her. “The Vanguard will be furious. When they take us to task, I’m going to tell them I tried to stop you.”

Uldren perked up as soon as they stepped out of the cell; his eyes darted, clearly seeking an opportunity to escape. Andrew wasn’t sure he’d need one. 

“So, uh,” Andrew said, as they came to the door to the surface and it slid helpfully open before them, “you remember that the dropship only seats one, right?”

Bea paused, raised her hands to sign -- and Uldren bolted the minute she took her hand off him. As he sprinted through the grass and disappeared into the nearby treeline, Bea looked after him, mouth hanging slightly open.

“I don’t know what you expected,” Andrew said.


	3. Chapter 3

By the time Uldren stopped running, his sides were heaving, sweat beading on his forehead despite the wintry bite to the air.  _ I really am out of shape _ . Little wonder: while he’d made sporadic efforts, he hadn’t had the space or equipment for sustained exercise in his cell. 

Still, he consciously tried to stop himself before he grew exhausted. He might need his energy reserves. Beatrice might catch up to him and force him to flee again, or he might run across any number of problems, from hostile fauna to wandering Eliksni. Running could well be his best option; he didn’t have a lot of others at the moment.

He sat warily on a moss-covered rock, watching his surroundings, ready to flee again at the first sign of pursuit -- though the last time he’d glanced over his shoulder before, as he reached the trees, Beatrice hadn’t even started moving yet. Time to take stock of his situation.

Good news: he wasn’t in prison anymore. Bad news: he was lost in a forest somewhere on Earth with nothing but the clothes on his back. The clothes on his back, and … He pulled his small datapad out of his pocket, tapped out one last message, and then tossed it into the underbrush, then started off into the woods again at a fast walk. He’d liked to have set a trap for whoever tracked the device here, but it would take too long.

So, lost in the wilderness. The “wilderness” part bothered him rather more than the “lost” one: it wasn’t as if he had a destination in mind; he could hope that if he didn’t know where he was, neither would his pursuit. But he did need to figure out a plan for survival. (Did he? Yes, he did. Getting out of that cell had done wonders in restoring his will to live. He might die anyway, but he wouldn’t lie down and wait for it.) He’d made it through harsher environments, of course, but usually he started out with better supplies.  _ Any  _ supplies. He had no weapons, tools, food, water -- even the clothes he wore weren’t quite warm enough for the weather. And his shoes were light slippers, never intended for outdoor wear. He could feel every rock and root under his feet; they already ached.

Water first, then shelter. Food could wait. (Damnable timing -- if he’d known he’d soon be at risk of starvation, he wouldn’t have depleted his body with a hunger strike.) He could only hope to run across a water source as he walked, so he turned his mind to shelter. The temperature was bearable now, but it was mid-afternoon; it would only grow colder as the sun went down. He needed to have somewhere to hunker down by the time it got cold, and certainly before dark.

The sound of something crashing through the underbrush off to his left interrupted Uldren’s thoughts, and he quickly moved away from it, as quietly as he could. Whether it was an animal or Beatrice hunting him, he didn’t want to meet it. The sound receded into the distance, till he couldn’t make it out over his own footsteps. He stopped for a second, couldn’t figure out if it was still there, and kept going.


	4. Chapter 4

Uldren came instantly awake from a light, uneasy, uncomfortable sleep at the sounds of footsteps crunching through the leaf litter to the shelter he’d built, little more than a layer of leaves under him and another propped over him with branches. Damn it. He’d known this would happen, but he didn’t see what else he could have done; keeping on the move would have just exhausted him. What could he do, burst out of the lean-to and run? 

Too late: he did jump up, in a chaos of shed leaves, and Beatrice tackled him to the ground immediately, driving the wind out of him. He could feel that he’d have a bad bruise where her shoulder hit his ribs. Still, he twisted and tried to push her off him, scrabbling in the dirt, but she was heavy and quick. She pinned him to the ground easily, a knee on his back, grabbing his wrists and yanking them behind him. He finally gave up, letting his face rest in the moist earth.

“Do you  _ want _ to die in the middle of nowhere?” her ghost said, shining a flashlight on both of them.

“There are worse fates,” Uldren muttered. He lifted his head -- dirt and a dead leaf stuck to his cheek. “Well, you caught me. What are you going to do with me now?”

Why had she taken him out of his cell in the first place? He hoped his attempted escape wouldn’t land him back there. Whatever torment she had devised for him, he’d prefer it to a return to his prison; at least it would add a little variety.

“Good question,” the ghost said, its light rising off Uldren as it focused on its guardian. “What  _ are _ you going to do with him, Bea?”

She released his wrists -- fat lot of good that did him, but he could at least prop up his head. After a pause, the ghost said, “If we let you up, will you run again? You can’t get away. You’ll just waste all of our time.”

How  _ had _ they found him? He’d done his best to take a winding path through the woods, one they wouldn’t be able to predict. Had she used her dropship’s sensors, or … Ah. Of course.

“Your tracker. Is it on my clothes or in my body?”

A moment’s hesitation. Then, from the ghost: “Body.”

Uldren gritted his teeth. So he’d never had a chance. He could run and run, like a rat in a maze, and all they had to do was come pick him up when he’d worn himself out. And they hadn’t even had the courtesy to tell him.

“I won’t run,” Uldren said, quietly, bitterly. He didn’t want to admit defeat, but he’d faced a bleak outlook even before he’d known they could track him, just with his chances of surviving in the woods, let alone making it to any semblance of civilization.

Beatrice eased her knee off his back and stood up, then offered him a hand up, which he did not take. On his feet, he brushed the dirt off his face. “Lead on, O mighty guardian.”

She took his shoulder and guided him through the woods, the ghost’s flashlight illuminating their steps.  _ Doesn’t trust my word, does she? _ Smart of her.

Now that he’d left the hard-won warmth of his shelter, he could hardly keep from shivering, as hard as he tried. Beatrice stopped, pausing to make sure he didn’t run the moment she took her hand off him, and unwound the ammo belts, weapons, and accoutrements decorating her coat before finally taking it off and handing it to him. He wanted to refuse, but he was freezing. The coat even fit him well enough: they were almost the same size. That left her in a black tank top, but of course her exo body wouldn’t feel the cold. She buckled her equipment back on and steered Uldren onwards with a hand on his back.

He knew when they reached their destination because her dropship was hovering in the clearing they came to, its cockpit open and waiting. His heart sank as he looked in and realized there was only one seat. Behind gaped a cramped space into which he would just barely fit like luggage.

Beatrice looked at the same space, looked at him, and considered, presumably working out dimensions and the probability of him suffering a fatal concussion from being thrown against the bulkhead during flight. Then she gestured to the seat with an  _ after you _ flourish.

“Careful,” he said, climbing in. “Your coat, your dropship -- next thing you know I’ll be putting you in prison. Ah, a man can dream.”

The harness closed around him as she squeezed in behind him, and he reached for the controls -- half automatically, half hopeful -- but they were locked, of course.

The cockpit closed like a tomb, and then they were off.


	5. Chapter 5

From low-Earth orbit, Uldren could see the stars for the first time in months, and the sight silenced him when he would have liked to find some barb to throw at the woman behind him. At least he’d gotten to listen to her slam against the bulkhead as the ship ascended, despite her tight grip on the back of his seat. Being exo, she wouldn’t bruise; he wondered if she even felt pain.

They drifted through orbit for a time, without any apparent destination, so finally Uldren put his hands on the unresponsive controls and looked over his shoulder with an ostentatiously fake smile, imitating a solicitous pilot: “Well, where to?”

Beatrice looked at him, green eyes glowing out of the shadows, and said nothing. Not much for conversation, was she? He realized she’d never deigned to speak to him.

“The City,” her ghost said, appearing. “We’re going to the Last City.”

Had they simply decided to imprison him in a more convenient location? The ship turned to Earth without Uldren’s input, of course: steered by the ghost, he assumed. The useful little catch-all AI. The kingmaker, who plucked gods from the ranks of the dead.

What else might await him in the City? Perhaps they’d decided to execute him, just as arbitrary as Beatrice’s decision to spare him. Maybe they wanted to interrogate him for the Awoken’s secrets -- whatever secrets Petra hadn’t already happily handed over. He considered these possibilities without fear. Whatever came, he’d face it, not because he felt prepared but because he had no choice. Besides, he doubted the high-and-mighty guardians could come up with anything worse than what he’d already gone through.

But he hadn’t abandoned the idea of escape. He would have been glad to reach the City because it provided better opportunities to the wilderness -- he could blend into the crowds, find supplies, maybe even a ship -- but that tracker would make things difficult. If he could get to the Reef -- if he could get to  _ Mara _ … Surely it wouldn’t matter if the guardians knew where he was, if he were at his sister’s side. She wouldn’t let them take him. ( _ And what do you think Mara will make of your actions? _ whispered an unpleasant voice in his mind.  _ You preyed on her people, aided her enemies -- do you think she’ll welcome you back with open arms? _ ) Failing that, he’d have to look for a way to block or remove the tracker. He needed some kind of scanner, to figure out where it was in his body and what kind of signal it gave off … 

He could feel a lump in one of the pockets of Beatrice’s coat; investigating it, he found his own datapad. So they had tracked it down. How nice.


	6. Chapter 6

“I’m sitting right across from you,” Uldren said, putting his datapad down on the small table, next to the bowl of oatmeal and, yes, glass of orange juice that had awaited him when he woke. “You can tell me to shut up in person.”

In the chair she’d pulled slightly away from the table -- the only chair; Uldren sat on a bench molded into the wall, rounding the corner -- Beatrice lowered her own datapad. She raised her hand to her face and snapped her fingers and thumb together like a mouth closing. Clear enough, but he didn’t intend to obey.

“Why did you drag me here, if you don’t know what to do with me?” he asked. “Your Vanguard doesn’t even know I’m here?”

Beatrice shrugged.

That could work to his advantage. If he could get rid of her, no one else would know to look for him. He had no way to kill her, even temporarily, but if he could contrive some distraction, keep her busy long enough … But he’d have to work fast: she’d probably been right when she’d written online that the Vanguard would figure it out soon.

That brought him back to the baffling fact that Beatrice had, apparently completely on her own authority, and with no idea what to do next, decided to pull him out of prison and bring him home with her. Why? Even assuming her lack of foresight derived from simple stupidity -- and he had no problem attributing her low intelligence -- where had the initial impulse to get him out come from? Anaris? He seemed smarter than this, marginally. Had Beatrice simply been so moved by the sight of Uldren’s pitiful, starving form? 

“I don’t want your pity,” he said aloud. Though he had to admit that the change of scenery was nice -- and the possibilities it opened up more so. He’d have to be careful, though. Browsing City social media had made it clear that a significant number of guardians would kill him on sight. He felt like he’d been dropped into a Hive spawning ground, naked.

“What  _ do _ you want?” her ghost said, appearing. 

Uldren chuckled wryly, amused by the idea that his desires might actually matter for once. He stood, feeling Beatrice’s eyes follow him as he went to the window over the bed and looked out. The view was terrible, dominated by the City’s soul-crushing wall. Just one big prison, wasn’t it? “I want what I’ve always wanted: to see my sister again.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” the ghost said, thoughtfully. “We should have thought of that earlier. I don’t know if we can get in touch with her anymore.”

“You spoke to her?” He had too, briefly, online -- if that had been the real Mara, and not another imposter. Or a hallucination. No, he could look back at the messages; they were real.

“A couple times,” the ghost said. “But she left to do … something. She never told us what exactly. She can be really unclear, you know.”

“She can indeed,” Uldren said, laughing again. Though he also found himself stung by the idea that his sister would have spoken to Beatrice -- to his captor, to a  _ guardian _ \-- more than to him. And that she hadn’t thought to help him -- she had to know he was still alive. Perhaps she was angry at his mistakes after all. More sharply, he said, “Not everyone has the wisdom to understand her gifts.”

“Riiiight,” the ghost said. Beatrice walked over to the window, leaning against the wall beside it, her head turned to look out. Uldren could see the glow of her eyes reflected in the glass, even with the sunlight from outside. Her ghost floated between them, asking, “If we promise to try to contact your sister, will you behave? We’d rather not chase you halfway across the City.”

Uldren thought about it. If he said no, what would they do? Throw him back in a cell? He might as well assent, even if he broke his word later, just to lull Beatrice into a false sense of security. The time and space might let him plan a successful escape, instead of dashing off at the first chance he got. Besides, “behave” was a terribly vague stricture …

“I suppose,” he sighed. He went back to the table and draped himself aristocratically over the seat, picking up his spoon. “In that case, you might as well get me more orange juice.”

She didn’t.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Between the last chapter and this one, Bea and Uldren briefly encountered [Mara (@brillianteternal)](https://brillianteternal.tumblr.com/) in a private thread.

Uldren was halfway through breakfast when Petra Venj stormed into his chamber -- a chamber to which he was nominally confined, but he’d thought of three ways to get out already, and that was assuming the Corsairs guarding him didn’t let him just walk out the door. They appeared unsure whether they were jailers or an honor guard: the techeuns knew what he’d done, but the Corsairs seemed not to, confused by their orders to imprison their Prince and hero. Uldren’s charm was a bit rusty, but he thought he could talk his way out if he had to, as long as he didn’t run across one of the techeuns. Or Beatrice, who he thought still lingered somewhere nearby, to everyone’s dismay -- guardians weren’t usually permitted this deep in the Dreaming City. Of course, encountering Petra would also be a problem, and currently was.

“You have a lot of nerve, coming back here,” Petra growled as the door swung shut behind her, ruining the view of the Corsair who looked in curiously from her post outside.

“The Queen sent me here.” Uldren smirked. He knew he sounded intolerably smug and he didn’t care. “I hope you don’t intend to contravene her wishes.”

Petra bared her teeth in a snarl. “When the techeuns are done with you, you  _ will _ face the consequences of your actions.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing?” Uldren replied, contemptuous. Nothing Petra -- honorable, predictable Petra -- could possibly do to him would even faze him at this point. “I’ve faced my Queen’s judgment. Do you imagine yours to supersede hers?”

Petra’s jaw clenched. She couldn’t say that Mara was wrong, could she? Not devoted, obsequious Petra.

“I’ll make sure everyone knows what you’ve done,” she said slowly, sounding out the idea. “You’ll never be welcome among the Awoken again.”

He hadn’t expected to be. Still, he’d fight that battle if he could. What did he have to lose? Smiling cruelly, he said, “Yes, I’m sure they’d take the word of an incompetent, ruinous regent clearly trying to usurp the throne.”

“I’m not!” She sounded genuinely outraged.

“So? Whispers don’t have to be true to have great effect. I know that better than anyone.”  _ O brother mine.  _ “How do you think it’ll look, when it comes out that you handed the Reef’s rightful heir over to the guardians? Do you think the Awoken can weather that kind of internal strife right now?”

Petra’s face contorted in disgust. “You’d divide and sabotage your own people just to hide your crimes? And here I thought you might have regained some scraps of decency.”

“I’d prefer not to.” In fact, he wasn’t sure he’d go through with it, not after all the harm he’d already done the Awoken. But Petra didn’t have to know that. He picked up his coffee and took a sip. “So, how about it, Petra Venj? You keep my secrets and I’ll keep yours.”

With a wordless sound of frustration, Petra spun on her heel and marched out of the room.

_ I think that went rather well, all things considered.  _ Uldren turned back to his breakfast.


	8. Chapter 8

“Look,” Uldren said, “I don’t want to divide the Awoken any more than you do. So why don’t we agree on what happened? Three years ago, when the Hive Dreadnaught activated its weapon” -- his voice almost faltered, thinking back to that moment -- “I was blown all the way to Mars. My enemies found me there, imprisoned me, and only recently have I made it back to the Dreaming City.”

Petra glared at him, but her furrowed brow owed more to confusion than anger. She hadn’t expected him to answer her scolding with such a reasonable tone. “You want me to lie? Say you never killed anyone -- let your crimes go unpunished?”

Leaning back in his chair, Uldren shrugged. “I’m simply trying to find a solution that permits us to coexist. I will do you the favor of forgiving any past  _ transgressions _ if you do the same for me.”

Quite magnanimous of him, really, considering the misery Petra had sentenced him to not once but twice, and how she’d helped hunt and slaughter his allies -- but if he had to trade his revenge on Petra for his re-entry into Awoken society, so be it.

“If I  _ really _ have to,” Uldren said, sighing, “I’ll let you be the hero who discovered my plight and rescued me. It’ll grieve me, but sometimes sacrifices have to be made.”

“I ought to throw you in a cell and leave you to rot,” Petra growled.

“You already did.  _ Twice _ .” Uldren felt his own face twisting in a snarl to match Petra’s. He forced himself to remain calm. “Do you expect a better result from a third prison stay? Haven’t the techeuns told you that my will was not my own?”

Petra hesitated. The techeuns had declared Uldren currently free of outside influences -- though they had conspicuously balked at “mentally sound,” perhaps due to the stack of psychiatrist’s reports that Beatrice had furnished them with -- but they had also found evidence of the Darkness that had ravaged his mind and body over the last three years.

Sensing that he’d started to get through to Petra, Uldren looked her in the eye and inserted a plea into his voice despite his pride’s protests. They had been friends once. “Petra, I just want to come home.”

Biting her lip, Petra said, “You can’t. You  _ can’t _ . The guardians would revile us if we welcomed Cayde’s killer.”

“Do the guardians now make policy for the Reef?” He could hear anger returning to his tone, an anger that risked losing the fragile consideration he’d earned from Petra, but recent events had done so much to inflame his old hatred.

“No!” From Petra’s defensive tone, Uldren guessed that he wasn’t the only one to suggest as much. Good. He’d planted some rumors in that vein himself. Nothing too damning -- yet. “But they are our allies. Vital allies -- we cannot afford to lose them.”

“If we cannot afford to lose the guardians, we have already lost ourselves.” Intemperate words, but he couldn’t stop himself.

Petra flushed. “Easy for you to say. You haven’t been here, fighting every day to save what’s left of the Reef.”

“Then let me help.” He didn’t have to make himself sound sincere. “Let me atone for my actions. If I have hurt the Awoken, let me help them heal.”

“I’ll … think about it.” Petra shook her head. “Against my better judgment. I don’t -- I  _ can’t _ \-- trust you. Not after everything you’ve done. You have to face justice.”

Uldren’s throat tightened, but he still had one last card to play: “If you intend to condemn me, at least have the courage to do it publicly and give me a chance to defend myself. Let the people decide whether to take me back.”

Petra bared her teeth, angry -- because she knew she’d lose that battle. She knew how much the Awoken still loved Uldren, and she knew how well he could appeal to them. “No. Not a chance.”

“Then I can only await your judgment.” Uldren made it sound like a dismissal, and he could see that that angered Petra too -- the idea that he was giving her an audience, rather than the other way around. But she left, which was the important thing.

She hadn’t thought to ask him which enemies he intended to blame for his disappearance. Oh, but the Awoken would  _ not _ be happy when he told him how the guardians had hidden their Prince away.


	9. Chapter 9

They showed up at the crack of dawn -- one of Petra’s many small revenges -- but Uldren was already awake. Returning to the Dreaming City had soothed his nightmares, but not banished them entirely, and around four thirty he’d decided to get some work done instead of returning to the Voice of Riven’s tender embrace in his dreams. He sat at his desk, head propped up in both hands, staring at supply manifests and casualty reports and territory maps and trying to add them up into a viable future for the Awoken that didn’t have the Last City’s greedy handprints all over it. Not much more fun than the nightmares, really, but he stuck with it because he knew that even worrying about the Awoken’s fate was a privilege he’d fought hard for.

Still, he felt rather glad to be interrupted when the loud, sharp knock came at his door. Running a hand over his hair to tidy it after all the times he’d unconsciously raked at it in frustration, Uldren opened the door.

“The Paladins and I have approved your mission to deal with the Fanatic,” Petra said, curtly. Her tone left no doubt that the Paladins had done more approving than she had. But then she smiled slightly, a bit unpleasantly, and stepped aside to reveal the two people standing behind her. “Your fireteam.”

Uldren looked from one to the other and didn’t know which one he least wanted to see.

“She openly threatened to kill me last month,” he said, picking simpler of his objections to the individuals in question. “You can’t expect me to trust her in a firefight.”

Beatrice-4 shrugged, raising her hands in a  _ what-can-I-say _ motion.

“Who hasn’t threatened to kill you?” said her ghost, hovering helpfully as ever by her side. “It’s your charming personality.”

Uldren raised his eyebrows at Petra. “As I said. While I’m sure you would find it quite convenient to shoot me in the back and blame it on the Scorn, I have no intention of making it that easy for you. Send someone else or I’m not going.”

He almost closed the door on them then, but something stopped him -- the other person Petra had brought. Uldren hadn’t addressed him yet, had barely looked at him, but he couldn’t just leave it at that.

“We don’t have a lot of options, considering that every other guardian in the system wants you dead,” Petra said.

“We do have a proven track record of keeping you alive,” the ghost said. Uldren scowled at it: he didn’t need the reminder that Beatrice had saved his life, more than once. He wasn’t even sure how many times now -- did finding him in the woods count? Ending his hunger strike? “And we know that if you die on this mission, at our hands or at the Scorn’s, your cronies will say it was a guardian plot.”

Uldren almost laughed at the word “cronies” -- was he a holo-vid villain now? Cackling in the shadows with his minions? Then it struck him: oh, he probably was, for the guardians. He couldn’t say he hadn’t played the part, lurking on the Shore with his Barons.

“For that knowledge to restrain you requires a good deal more common sense and respect for consequences than you have ever demonstrated in my sight,” Uldren replied, thinking of how Beatrice had pulled him from prison with no apparent plan besides stashing him in her tiny, rather pathetic apartment. Of course, that had turned out in his favor -- and maybe this would too, now that he thought about it. If he could avoid her shooting him in the back, he might just have a chance to do that very thing to her. And with Fikrul’s help -- which he imagined the Archon would happily give -- he might even manage to make it permanent. Did he still want that revenge? He thought of long days and longer nights in his cell, of months without sunlight, shoes and cold floor scuffed from pacing, head in hands, desperate for a single word from outside -- yes, he did.

“Fine,” he said, abruptly. “I’ll do it.”

His sudden change of heart was suspicious, he knew, and he saw Petra hesitate and glance at Beatrice. Petra must have had an inkling of his plan, even if the guardian herself were too stupid to see the danger. But Beatrice just nodded and extended a hand as if she genuinely expected Uldren to shake it. For an awkward few seconds, Uldren looked at Beatrice as if she’d offered him a dead rat, until she finally withdrew.

And then there was nothing for it but to turn his attention to the other prospective member of their fireteam: Jolyon Till the Rachis. He looked a little more careworn than Uldren remembered, but didn’t they all? And he had seen Jolyon look worse, in the Garden, exhausted and hunted, dirt on his face, afraid. Uldren had seen so many emotions on Jolyon’s face, known him so well, and yet now found his expression completely indecipherable.

Uldren forced a smile. “Hello, Jol.”

“Don’t call me that.” Jolyon spoke evenly, without heat, but the words still felt like a slap in the face. Uldren struggled not to let his hurt show. He’d wondered if perhaps his captors had lied about delivering his many letters to Jol, and that was why he’d never gotten a response -- but hearing Jolyon speak, he knew better. Jol hadn’t written him back because he hadn’t wanted to. Now Uldren rather hoped that Jolyon had never even opened those messages; his stomach churned with embarrassment, remembering everything he’d said.

“Well, aren’t we going to make a great fireteam?” Uldren said, voice heavy with sarcasm, as he looked from Jolyon to Beatrice. “Fikrul won’t know what hit him.”


	10. Chapter 10

Under normal circumstances Uldren would have despised returning to the Tangled Shore: the site of his greatest mistakes, the Watchtower looming on the horizon as a monument to his folly. But after sitting through the awkward, heavy silence that permeated the shuttle on the way there, he could have kissed the rocky ground. Jolyon had barely spoken two words together to Uldren, who refused to make further overtures -- too proud, too ashamed. Even if Jolyon had felt chatty, most of what Uldren wanted to say to him he didn’t dare say in front of Beatrice. The guardian herself remained tight-lipped as ever, for all that she didn’t have lips, but Uldren preferred it that way.

Uldren’s flash of relief quickly reversed as they settled in to the tiny safehouse they’d be using as their base on the Shore -- courtesy of the Spider, who wanted Fikrul gone as much as they did, and who, Petra had mentioned in passing, was quite unhappy to learn that Uldren was still alive. So he’d better watch his back, and his front. He certainly didn’t trust Beatrice to do either of those things, and though it hurt to think his closest friend might not raise a finger to help him, he didn’t know if he could rely on Jolyon either.

But that wasn’t the primary cause of Uldren’s foul mood. Rather, it was their locale, and how very much it resembled his cell -- or, given the Eliksni architecture of Thieves’ Landing, the Kings’ ship. When the safehouse door closed behind him, Uldren had to suppress a shudder and the mad urge to open it and flee. A suicidal impulse: between the Spider’s enmity and the Shore’s general danger, he wouldn’t make it three minutes in the open alone, especially since Petra had quietly failed to provide him with a weapon. He had asked, half-sarcastic, how they expected him to survive the Shore unarmed, and no one had answered, which was in itself an answer: they didn’t. He’d just have to prove them wrong. (If he didn’t, it would cost them. The ghost had been right to suggest that if Uldren died, his allies among the Awoken -- whom he’d managed to contact after his return to the Dreaming City -- would blame the guardians and Petra, their stooge.)

His best bet, of course, was simply to stick close to Beatrice and Jolyon, who did have guns. And more than just survival made him seek their company: looking at them reminded him that he wasn’t in solitary confinement anymore, an assurance that his clenched teeth and hollow gut seemed to need. What company! He got to choose between hostile silence with Beatrice and awkward silence with Jolyon, or some sad combination of the two when all three of them were in the same room. But it was better than the trapped near-panic that struck him when alone -- a weakness he deplored in himself, but couldn’t fight. He couldn’t stop thinking of how easy it would be for Beatrice to lock him in a tiny side chamber until it was time to confront Fikrul -- and he doubted Jolyon would even make an attempt to stop her.

“So, what’s the plan?” Jolyon asked, not long after they settled in to the safehouse. He directed the question at Beatrice, but she wouldn’t answer, of course. Uldren had a pretty good idea of why that was, after observing her during their audience with Mara, but he didn’t plan to reveal that knowledge until he found a good opportunity to use it against her.

“We don’t have to hunt Fikrul,” Uldren said, as Beatrice’s ghost appeared but before it could speak. “As soon as he learns I’m alive, he’ll come to me.”

“So we asked Spider to spread the word,” the ghost said. “We expect Fikrul to show up soon. And he probably won’t be alone.”

“So we’re going to lure the most powerful Scorn to our doorstep and … then what?” Jolyon said. “We shoot him?”

Beatrice shook her head. Her ghost said, “We’ve tried that. Many times. He just keeps coming back.”

“That must be so frustrating for you,” Uldren said, sarcastic. He turned to Jolyon. “When Fikrul gets here, I’m going to convince him to turn the Scorn’s ire away from the Dreaming City. They won’t be an issue anymore.”

_ For the Awoken _ , Uldren added, mentally, because he had absolutely no intention of telling Fikrul to stop killing guardians.

In fact, if he got a chance, there was one more guardian Uldren particularly wanted Fikrul to kill.


	11. Chapter 11

Beatrice killed the first band of Scorn that came close to their safehouse before Uldren pointed out, acerbically, that if Fikrul were trying to decide whether to approach, slaughtering his scouts would not encourage him. The next group sniffed around and went away unharmed, so Uldren hoped that Fikrul would appear soon. But in the meantime, they waited.

The oppressive silences clearly didn’t bother Beatrice, and Uldren would be damned before he’d prove any less patient than she was, so it was Jolyon who broke first. He pulled out a pack of cards. “Guardian, do you know how to play Queen’s Bluff?”

She didn’t, so Jolyon said he’d teach her. Then he glanced up at Uldren, very nearly the first time he’d met Uldren’s eyes the entire trip, and added, “It’s quite difficult to play with just two people, though.”

Not quite an invitation, and Uldren considered rejecting it, just to show that he wasn’t desperate for company -- but he was. So he went and sat on the floor with the two of them as Jolyon started shuffling the cards.

It proved an immensely satisfying exercise, because Uldren happened to be fantastic at Queen’s Bluff, and Beatrice decidedly was not. She did, of course, have an excellent poker face, though lacking facial muscles was arguably cheating in that regard. But like any beginner, she struggled, and Uldren took great pleasure in beating her again and again.

“Come  _ on _ ,” Jolyon said, sounding almost as frustrated as Beatrice’s body language suggested she was, as Uldren casually tossed down yet another winning hand. “Give her a break.”

“Why should I? She’s never given me a break.”

“We  _ did _ get you out of prison,” Beatrice’s ghost pointed out. “And spare your life, before that.”

“That was your mistake,” Uldren said, snottily.

“I’m rather glad she did,” Jolyon said mildly, as if he meant nothing by it. But Uldren looked at him sharply, because that was the first sign his old friend had given him that he actually cared that Uldren was still alive.

“So am I,” Uldren said finally, after a notable pause. He was glad, these days, although there had been times when he’d thoroughly cursed her decision to prolong his misery.

“Then the least you could do is let her win at cards,” Jolyon replied.

“Not to interrupt,” said Beatrice’s ghost, interrupting, “but all our external sensors just went out. And the last thing I registered on them was a large group of Scorn heading this way.”

Jolyon dropped his cards and went for his guns. Beatrice took the time to put her helmet on before standing. She didn’t have to go fetch a weapon; her ghost materialized a sword onto her back, a pistol at her waist, and her bow into her hands.

Uldren got to his feet more slowly, since he had no gear to grab -- except his helmet, but he suspected he’d fare better if the Scorn could see his face.

They’d prepared the area immediately outside the safehouse for combat, the ghost transmatting sturdy crates and barriers into strategic spots. Jolyon climbed into a sniper’s nest while Beatrice and Uldren picked defensive positions. Beatrice’s wasn’t very well-chosen, Uldren saw, looking over, but he wasn’t about to offer her advice. 

Uldren himself still didn’t have a gun. Of course, if all went well, he wouldn’t need one; he was just here to talk to the Scorn. But when in his life had events ever complied with the best-case scenario?

The three of them sat there waiting for the better part of a minute before the safehouse door slid open behind them and a spiny Eliksni captain emerged, glanced across the battlefield, and immediately started shooting at Beatrice, who -- with a guardian’s idiotic courage -- stood mostly exposed behind a waist-high barrier.

They hadn’t expected attack from within the safehouse; their defenses weren’t set up for that. As more Eliksni joined their captain, Uldren darted into a new position that offered him better cover from behind and jammed his helmet on just in time to hear Beatrice’s ghost over comms: “ -- der betrayed us!”

“And he knows how to deal with ghosts,” Uldren said, “so I recommend you keep yours hidden.”

If she was even still alive … Uldren looked over to see that Beatrice had found better cover, too, and the scorch marks on her coat were fading as her ghost repaired her gear alongside her body. Must be nice. As if sensing his gaze, she looked up at him and, to his surprise, and slid her hand cannon across the floor towards him. Her aim wasn’t good, but he managed to catch it. Well. Good. A moment later a box of ammo landed by his foot as well.

Then the shooting started proper.

The three of them were vastly outnumbered. It was a bloodbath. Or, rather, an Ether-bath.

Beatrice was, Uldren had to admit, brutally effective, even if she fought in a way that a mere mortal never could have gotten away with. She seemed to have only a vague understanding of the concept of “cover,” preferring to stand and face the Eliksni head-on until they shot holes in her, then duck behind a barrier while her ghost healed her. Uldren, more cautious, made it through without a scratch, pleased to find that his combat abilities had not utterly atrophied. And Jol performed as expected: flawlessly.

“The Scorn should be here any second,” the ghost said as the Eliksni corpses cooled. It hovered over them, scavenging ammo, and Uldren joined it. If Spider had prepared his soldiers to deal with Beatrice and her ghost, then -- ah, yes. That would be useful. He also grabbed one of the Vandals’ rifles, to explain his search and because he might genuinely need it. Though if all went well, the fighting was over -- the Scorn shouldn’t attack Uldren, not once they recognized him. Towards that, he took his helmet off.

But of course it wasn’t that simple. The first wave of Scorn were Stalkers, throwing firebombs at Beatrice and rushing Uldren, and he looked one full in the face before it smashed its bludgeon down towards his head. He dodged as Jol shot it, but it still grazed his side with enough force to knock him to his knees. For an instant as the Stalkers converged on him he knew he was going to die and could only think  _ Damn it, not now _ with more frustration than fear _.  _ Then lightning struck beside him, vaporizing a couple Scorn and sending the rest staggering back; Beatrice landed in front of him with Arc Light leaping from her hands, sparking harmlessly against his skin -- harmless to him, but not the Scorn. The Stalkers were all dead by the time he scrambled to cover and pulled his helmet on.

“They don’t recognize me,” he reported, with a sense that he should have expected this. He wasn’t actually sure if the Scorn could even see -- their helmets usually covered their eyes. Perhaps they had previously identified him solely by the Darkness pulsing under his skin, the same corruption that ran through their own veins.

“That’s a problem,” Jol said, with a note of humorous understatement. “What do we do?”

“Stay alive until Fikrul shows himself,” Uldren replied. Surely Fikrul would know him, even if the rank-and-file Scorn did not. If not -- that would be, in Jol’s terms, a problem. Well, Beatrice had killed Fikrul before, hadn’t she? She might have to do it again.

Fortunately, they didn’t have long to wait. Fikrul had to duck to make it through the door, and for a moment Uldren’s breath froze in his throat as he registered anew just how large and imposing and hideous the Fanatic was. Before, he hadn’t really noticed how repulsive the Scorn were -- their glistening stretched skin, frenzied scuttling limbs, jagged masses of teeth, and the acrid smell of Dark Ether.

Beatrice raised her bow to shoot Fikrul and Uldren hissed, “Don’t!” 

This was the moment they’d waited for, his time to shine. He pulled his helmet off and stepped out from behind the crate he’d used for cover, calling, “Fikrul!”

The huge head turned towards him, heavy with that massive, iconic headdress. Fikrul straightened slightly, tilted his head slightly, with a sort of confused hesitance that Uldren had never seen from him before. In an unusually soft voice he rasped, “Father?”

“It’s me,” Uldren confirmed, moving closer. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Beatrice slide closer to Fikrul, between him and Uldren, sword in hand. Uldren looked at her; Fikrul followed his gaze.

Uldren could have told him to stand down. He didn’t. Instead he watched Beatrice spasm as Fikrul skewered her like a fish, Arc energy playing through her limbs, an ironic contrast to her earlier elemental mastery. Fikrul shook her body off his spear and watched, lips drawn back, as her ghost rose over it, raising the weapon again, and now Uldren said, “Wait.”

“Uldren, I can’t -- ” the ghost said, its shell closing back around it.

“I know,” Uldren said: he could feel the Darkness roiling off Fikrul himself, knew the Light was too weak here to bring Beatrice back. In one motion he grabbed the ghost out of the air, pulled the collapsible cage he’d scavenged from Spider’s Captain from his belt, and snapped it shut around the little drone.

“You  _ bastard _ ,” the ghost said.

Uldren ignored it, looking at Fikrul instead. “There’s a sniper there. Bring him to me -- unharmed.”

Fikrul nodded, face twisting in a horrific smile, and gestured with his spear; the Scorn around him obeyed, scurrying off after Jolyon. Uldren looked up towards the sniper’s nest. He couldn’t see a muzzle or scope from here, but he knew he was in Jol’s line of sight; he knew those crosshairs were trained on his head, and he knew Jol wouldn’t miss.

No shot came, not before Fikrul made the same calculation and moved between Uldren and Jol. Uldren turned away.

Fikrul put a heavy hand on Uldren’s back. “We should leave. I have a place, a safe place …”

“Yes,” Uldren said. He glanced back at Beatrice’s body. “Bring that too.”

With a nod, Fikrul led him away.


	12. Chapter 12

Fikrul stayed quiet for a long moment after Uldren told him to leave the Awoken alone. His silence confirmed Uldren’s suspicions: Fikrul now doubted his leadership. The Fanatic’s personal devotion hadn’t wavered; that much was clear from his fawning reaction to Uldren, his reluctance to let his “Father” out of his sight. But Fikrul could revere Uldren without actually obeying him; Uldren wouldn’t be surprised if Fikrul had concerns about his resolve, his mental state after months of captivity. The irony did not escape Uldren, when Fikrul had supported his earlier delusions, but to a lunatic, sanity looked like madness. If Uldren misstepped, he might well become a prisoner of his own followers, locked safely away in Fikrul’s lair while the Scorn ravaged the Reef in his name.

“Awoken …” Fikrul said. “They cling to old ways. And to Regent … _Petra Venj_.”

The hatred in Fikrul’s voice as he drew out Petra’s name almost made Uldren’s stomach clench, even considering his own feelings towards Petra. He had promised to forgive her if she gave him a second chance. But he had promised many things, and she hadn’t exactly buried the hatchet herself.

“The Awoken have their purpose,” Uldren said. “As for Petra … Her time will come.”

Another pause as Fikrul considered this. Uldren let him think, casually turning a knife in his hand, then added: “We have other wars to fight.”

Fikrul’s lips parted in an expression Uldren couldn’t quite call a smile. Yes, he liked that. Uldren was never going to convince the Fanatic to retire peacefully, but he could redirect his energies.

“The Spider thinks the Tangled Shore belongs to him,” Uldren said. “The guardians treat the Reef’s corpse as their new playground. We should show them both how wrong they are.”

Fikrul’s hungry grin widened. “ _Yes._ ”

Uldren smiled back. “Yes. Those who invade the Reef for its spoils will find that it has new teeth.”

 _Ugly teeth_ , he thought, but that just made them more effective.

Sheathing his knife, Uldren stood. “Get started. I’m going to visit our guest.”

Fikrul nodded, moving aside to let Uldren pass. As he left Fikrul’s chamber, two Scorn fell in behind him: an honor guard. Not exactly a welcome one, but Fikrul had thus far proven deaf to Uldren’s hints that he did not need a Scorn escort everywhere he went, even deep in the Scorn’s own nest. Considering how his success and very survival relied on Fikrul’s devotion, Uldren hadn’t pressed too hard against that protective urge.

But he did stop when he reached the door of the room currently operating as Jolyon’s cell -- already heavily guarded. “Stay here,” he told the Scorn in Eliksni, though he honestly wasn’t sure how much they understood, how well their dead brains functioned. But they obeyed with disappointed hisses.

The way Jolyon looked at Uldren when he entered the cell cut him to the core: he’d never seen such anger and loathing in Jol’s eyes, let alone directed at him. Then Jol turned away, as if he couldn’t bear to look at Uldren. “What do you want?”

“Are you all right?”

Jolyon snorted. “What do you think?”

All right, stupid question. More specifically: “Did the Scorn hurt you?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

Jol glanced sidelong at Uldren. “What are you going to do, tell them off?”

Uldren opened his mouth to say yes, then reconsidered. Rubbing a hand over his face, he sat down on a crate -- this had formerly been a storage room -- feeling rather as if he were the prisoner, the petitioner, come to beg Jolyon for something. Forgiveness, perhaps.

“I have only one thing to say to you,” Jolyon said, still standing, arms crossed, facing away from Uldren. “This one’s on you. You can’t blame Riven, or the Darkness, or the Eliksni -- you can’t plead insanity, or whatever excuses you’re peddling now.”

Uldren opened his mouth, feeling his face flush. _Oh, Light, he_ did _read my letters._

“ _You_ killed that guardian,” Jol continued, giving Uldren no chance to interrupt -- not that he had any idea what he would have said anyway. “ _You_ betrayed us. No one made you do that. You’re finally free, sane, responsible for your own actions, and _this_ is what you do.”

“Fikrul killed her,” Uldren said, a bit weakly. “I just -- look, Jol, it’s not that simple -- ”

“ _Don’t_ call me that.” Jolyon let out a long breath, glancing over his shoulder. “You know, I actually hoped … never mind. I shouldn’t have.”

Uldren closed his eyes. He’d hoped too, and he shouldn’t have. He turned his voice cold. “In that case, I’ll leave you be. Don’t worry; you’ll be perfectly safe. I simply can’t have you telling tales to Petra before I’m ready.”

“I hope you’re happy,” Jolyon said, though he sounded so very hopeless.

“Thank you.” _I’m not._

Uldren couldn’t help thinking, as the Scorn escorted him back to his own chamber, how much he hated the Tangled Shore. What he wouldn’t give to be back in the Dreaming City right now … Not his freedom, though. Not his revenge.


	13. Chapter 13

“Three guardians are on their way here to kill Fikrul and myself,” Uldren said, without preamble, without looking up from his datapad. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Beatrice’s head turn sharply towards him. “If you object to us destroying them, you may wish to act.”

“Where can we find them?” her ghost asked.

Uldren told them. Once Beatrice left the room, put down his datapad and quietly took a different route to the location near one of the entrances to the Scorn’s lair, pulling his helmet on as he went. He wanted to see how Beatrice intended to deal with this. Badly, he suspected, so he brought a sniper rifle and a contingent of Scorn, under strict orders not to intervene until he signaled them.

Somehow, despite his preparations, he made it to his vantage point just before Beatrice stepped out in front of the three guardians. Perhaps she had gotten lost -- she’d been having a little trouble with the warren of winding corridors and dead-end rooms.

Looking through the scope, Uldren aimed for the lead guardian’s head and forced himself not to put his finger on the trigger; if he did, he didn’t think he’d be able to resist pulling it. He wasn’t as good a shot as Jol -- who was -- but it would be so easy. Since they hadn’t encountered any Scorn yet, the guardians moved quickly and without caution.

_ If you don’t want everyone to see you as a murderer, you have to stop killing people _ . With a long sigh, Uldren removed his face from the scope and watched the guardians stop in their tracks at Beatrice’s appearance. He had to bite back a laugh as she gave them an awkward little wave.

“Hello,” her ghost said into comms, sounding nervous. “What are you doing here?”

“We’re here to kill Uldren Sov and the Fanatic,” said the lead guardian, a hunter, after a moment’s pause. “What are  _ you _ doing here?”

“We can’t let you do that.”

That was the wrong thing to say: the hunter reached for her gun and her fireteam followed suit. Uldren returned to his scope, setting the hunter’s head in his crosshairs.

“You’re working with them -- ” Disbelief and loathing choked the woman’s voice.

“No, they’re working with us.” This didn’t help either. As the hunter drew her gun -- Beatrice did not, but her hand was on her own weapon -- the ghost added hurriedly, “This is a Vanguard-sanctioned operation in conjunction with the Awoken Regent -- who are you working for? Spider?”

The hunter hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second. “Doesn’t matter. Uldren Sov needs to die. For Cayde.”

“Uldren Sov is dead,” the ghost lied, with admirable conviction. “Spider is using his name to send you here and disrupt our attempts to keep the Scorn off the Reef, to consolidate his hold on the Shore and expand into the Dreaming City.”

A plausible story. Despite himself, Uldren was impressed; his estimation of the ghost’s intelligence kicked up a notch.

“If Sov is dead,” said the fireteam’s warlock, “how are you controlling the Scorn?”

“Hologram,” the ghost said without hesitation, and this time Uldren did chuckle, in his helmet where no one could hear him. “It’s kind of a delicate situation, so if you could not rush in and cause problems, we’d really appreciate it.”

“Wait, so the Scorn are now following a hologram of a dead man?” The group’s titan sounded confused. “Put together by you?”

“Well, they won’t be if you keep talking so loud,” said Beatrice’s ghost. “Look, it’s complicated, but we have it under control.”

“Then why are the Scorn still a problem?” the other warlock challenged. “Attacks on Spider’s Fallen have shot up, and they’re still fighting guardians -- ”

“Do you fight for Spider? We’ve only been able to pull the Scorn off one target so far, and the Awoken need the breathing room.”

If Uldren had been part of the conversation, he would have told the guardians they didn’t really  _ want _ the Scorn to stop attacking them, because then they would  _ only _ have ever other alien in the system to slaughter without remorse. He activated his comms and flipped to a private channel with Beatrice and her ghost. “Remind them how much fun they’re having destroying my Scorn.”

He saw Beatrice’s head turn as she looked for him, but she didn’t even manage to figure out the right direction, so there was little danger of her giving him away.

“Should’ve known you’d be lurking somewhere,” her ghost responded, resigned, on the private channel. Then, to the other guardians: “Look, you can handle a few Scorn, can’t you? But unless you’ve come up with a way to finish off the Fanatic for good, we kind of have to keep going with our plan. Which will be ruined if you barge in to kill him.”

The guardians considered this for a moment. Then Beatrice’s ghost added, “How about this? We can give you information on the next attacks the Scorn are planning. That way we can minimize the damage at both ends.”

The hunter made the decision for all three of them. “All right. But if you’re lying, we’ll be back.”

In his scope, Uldren saw Beatrice’s eyes narrow, but she said nothing, of course, just handed over the data. The guardians left. Beatrice looked around for a while -- looking for Uldren, he realized -- before retreating back into the Scorn’s lair. By his own route, Uldren followed, dismissing his escort of Scorn.

He would have liked to be sitting, unperturbed, right where she’d left him, giving no sign that he’d ever even moved -- but she made it there first, her expectant expression making it clear that she was waiting for him.

“I suppose you’re going to want me to send my Scorn into traps so that you can pretend to be feeding intelligence to your new friends.” Uldren picked up his datapad and leaned back against the wall.

“Probably a good idea, unless you want them to come kill you again,” the ghost said.

Uldren raised an eyebrow and offered her an insufferable smirk. “And what would I have to worry about, with my faithful guardian here to protect me?”

He half-expected Beatrice to reply that she dreamed of putting a bullet in his head the moment it became convenient. Or at least throwing him back in prison. But she said nothing, of course, just looked at him; maybe she was thinking of wringing his neck.

At last she turned and left. Good riddance.


End file.
